1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improved bottle washing apparatus and particularly to an apparatus for washing glass bottles prior to filling them with the fluid content they are intended to receive. Newly manufactured glass bottles usually contain residues from manufacturing as well as contaminations, e.g. packaging material, broken glass, dust, vermin etc. which deposite in the bottle during transportation and storage thereof. Therefore it is of paramount importance to thoroughly clean these bottles before filling them. For that purpose washing plants or so-called bottle-rinsers are used. The use of washing plants comprising a plurality of basic washing pools has the disadvantage of involving high costs in washing newly manufactured bottles, i.e. not recirculated bottles, because invenstments as well as labour costs resulting from power consumption and water consumption are very high.
2. Prior Art
In order to avoid these disadvantages it has been proposed to use a washing apparatus of similar construction as hereinbefore described but which is provided, as far as the cleaning station is concerned, with fresh water spraying devices instead of basic liquid pools. However a drawback of such apparatus is that it's construction is similarly expensive as that of the washing plants mentioned above. Furthermore a common characteristic of the above mentioned plants is that they have to be loaded batchwise, therefore calling for storage means in front of and after the plant. Such batchwise feeding means and unloading means are subject to troubles and usually ask for a person to watch upon there regular operation. Finally if such plants have to be changed to operate with another bottle size a considerable amount of spare parts and time is necessary.
In the prior art a further kind of washing apparatus for bottles is disclosed, picking up bottles to be washed which are fed in one line, continously inversing these bottles by means of a pivotable mechanism such that the bottle mouth is directed downwardly and forwarding the bottles in such inversed position to a stationary mounted spraying nozzle arrangement. The washing liquid having been drained from the bottle after the washing process, the bottles are inversed again and put on a discharge conveyor in the original position. Such washing plants have the disadvantage that the cleaning of the bottles is incomplete as only a fraction of the washing liquid gets into the bottle to be cleaned, the water consumption thereby being very high.
Another kind of washing up apparatus disclosed in the prior art comprise a feeding means including a sorting means to feed the incoming bottles to be washed in one line by a vertically disposed chain conveyer. The conveyor chain thereof is equipped with a plurality of bottle receiving means consisting of a plate-like member to receive the base part of the bottles, as well as of an annular part which is slipped over the neck of the bottle when the latter is handed over by the sorting means.
Finally, French Patent Publication Nr. 7805458 discloses a washing apparatus in which incoming bottles are isolated from each other by a continuously moving lifting apparatus to be gripped in the region of their neck by gripping means. The gripping means are received on a conveyor chain which is circulated around a wheel rotatable about a horizontal axis. During the washing process the bottles are sprayes out by synchronously driven spraying nozzles. Now the bottles remain positioned with their mouth directed downwardly during a certain period in order to allow the washing liquid to drain, and subsequently the bottles are inversed again to their original position, i.e. with their bottom directed downwardly. Finally the washed bottles are removed from the washing apparatus and fed to a conveyor by means of a discharging means or by a rotatably mounted lowering installation.
All the installations and plants of the prior art discussed above have common disavantages: Due to the fact that the transporting means, realized by chain conveyors, are arranged in a vertical plane, only one single length of the conveying path may be used for rinsing the bottles; this conveying path usually is smaller than a quarter of the circumference of the driving wheel. In addition such systems have a considerable total height because the bottles to be washed are fed in upright horizontal alignment and thereafter inversed about a horizontal axis in the region of their bottom. Finally it must be mentioned that the washed bottles may be drained only along the horizontally extending part of the chain conveyor; therefor such plants of the kind as described above require considerable space in their longitudinal direction.